Don’t say the wheels of government always spin slowly. When there is an agenda at work, they can move with considerable speed, and in the deconstruction of American overseas broadcasting, things are moving fast. Consider a new feasibility study completed on November 10 regarding a merger of three major entities of U.S. international broadcasting: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (FRE/RL), Radio Free Asia (FRA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Network (MEBN). These are three critical components of U.S. public diplomacy—in the case of RFE/RL, going back to the beginning of the …
In the age of media saturation and extravagant federal budget deficits, the question does comes up: Why does the United States need to spend some $750 million on international broadcasting every year? As with every taxpayer dollar spent, this question deserves an answer, and rarely has a more eloquent one been provided than the statement by expert communicator P.J. O’Rourke on the World Affairs Journal’s Editor’s blog. P. J. O’Rourke was a recent guest of Radio Free Europe in Prague, and recounted in the blog some of his thoughts on …
The new Broadcasting Board of Governors, announced on Friday by the Obama White House, have their work cut out for them. For a variety of not very satisfactory reasons, the U.S. broadcasting entities (Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, et al.) on whom the federal government spends $745 million a year of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money, have been without strong leadership and management for an unconscionably long period. Members of the board whose terms have long since expired have been doing yeoman service holding down the fort at the BBG …
Well into the second year of the Obama administration, U.S. international broadcasting services remain in a leaderless state of vacuum. Nor are these important public diplomacy assets of the government likely to emerge from limbo anytime soon, which is deeply unfortunate given the intensifying global competition for information dominance. At a time when China’s Xinhua news agency announced the launching of a global English-language channel, China Network Corp., or CNC, and the Russian government’s English language Russia Today channel is building up capacity with 40 staffers right here in Washington, …
On September 30, 2009, The Heritage Foundation hosted “The Year of Miracles: The Fall of the Berlin Wall Twentieth Anniversary.” A reoccurring theme of the event centered on America’s use of government-sponsored broadcasting and its effects on U.S. influence during the Cold War and how it must be used today. While government-sponsored broadcasting was just one of the many successful public diplomacy tools utilized by the United States, former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman emphasized that the United States still has much to learn in …
